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April, 2018: Toronto & GTA MLS® home sales: A Tale of Two Markets

Toronto, ON - May 3, 2018 - Realtors® in Toronto and the GTA / Greater Toronto Area released the April, 2018 issue of their monthly MarketWatch publication this morning and, oh, what a difference a year makes. Last year at this time we were digesting the Ontario government’s just-introduced Fair Housing Plan and it’s potential impact on a market where available inventory had shrunk to historic lows; year-over-year average prices were spiking by more than thirty percent; and rampant multiple-offer situations helped push the average time to sell a home to just nine days on the market..

This April saw - in broad, average, year-over-year terms at least - spiking inventory; a $100,000+ drop in the average selling price; and the average time it took to sell a home more than doubling.

Keeping some perspective…

What must be borne in mind, however, is that that we’re drawing comparisons to last year’s “crazy extreme” market. The numbers in this morning’s report are actually still pretty good in the bigger picture - though that’s a difficult pill to swallow for those who bought right at the height of last year’s frenzy.

Not only are many market segments and geographic areas still very active, but that Days-on-Market number, for example, is still quite low: A long-term average time to sell a house is probably more in the 30 to 40 day range. As we’ve pointed out here for some time, it used to be that when the asking price of a property was reduced it was simply “edited”, and the listing status changed to “Pc” for “Price Change”. In recent years it’s been far more common practice to actually terminate the listing and re-introduce it as “New” when there’s a price change. Of course, the end result is that the reported DOM [Days on Market] figure is shorter on average than it used to be. Also skewed for the long-term in the process is the “New Listings” stat…which is one reason we generally prefer the [Total] Active Listings.

Looking at specific numbers from the report…

Overall - including all residential property types and all TREB areas - the number of homes reported sold through TREB’s MLS® system in April was 7,792, a 32.1% drop from last April’s 11,468. The average selling price of those properties was $804,584, down 12.4% or $113,600 year-over-year…but up [just for the record!] arespectable 8.8% fromApril, 2016’s [adjusted] $739,762 average…and up 52.9% over five years [April, 2013’s overall average of $526,335 on 9,811 sales and 23 DOM].

Not surprisingly, Detached homes took the biggest hit in terms of both number of sales and average selling price: “The bigger they are, the harder they fall.” Metropolitan Toronto saw 819 Detached sales reported, down 34.3%, at an average sale price of $1,354,719, down 14.3%. The balance of the GTA saw 2,632 sales, down 39.6%, averaging $929,092, down 15.2%.

Sales of other Freehold types [Semi-Detached; Freehold Townhomes…] were also softer across TREB’s market area, though the average selling price of a Townhouse in Metro Toronto actually eked out a gain of 0.2%.

Condominium Apartment sales continued to slump, down 26.4% to 1,574 units in Toronto and down 24.9% to 644 units across the rest of the GTA. Condo Apartment selling prices, however, managed to cling to the positive side in spite of many months of dealing sales, up 3.8% to $601,211 in T.O. and up 1.6% to $457,104 in other parts of the GTA.

It also bears repeating that sales of residences over the two million dollar mark were down by about half versus one year earlier. Obviously that had a very significant impact on the overall average sale price.

Jason Mercer, the Toronto Real Estate Board’s Director of Market Analysis, offered: “The comparison of this year’s sales and price figures to last year’s record peak masks the fact that market conditions should support moderate increases in home prices as we move through the second half of the year, particularly for condominium apartments and higher density low-rise home types. Once we are past the current policy-based volatility, home owners should expect to see the resumption of a moderate and sustained pace of price growth in line with a strong local economy and steady population growth.”

And Board President, Tim Syrianos: “While average selling prices have not climbed back to last year’s record peak, April’s price level represents a substantial gain over the past decade. Recent polling conducted for TREB by Ipsos tells us that the great majority of buyers are purchasing a home within which to live. This means these buyers are treating home ownership as a long-term investment. A strong and diverse labour market and continued population growth based on immigration should continue to underpin long-term home price appreciation.”

As alluded to above, homes took “more than twice as long” to sell this April versus last at twenty days on the market compared to just nine.

Total Active Listings stood at 18,206 which represented a 40.8% increase YoY. Based on the overall sales total, that gives us an indicated Forward Inventory of 2.34 months - again, a healthy stat indicating a reatively balanced market, all in all, by historical standards.

To give some more perspective, we’ll be offering a more “micro-level”, apples-to-apples look at what’s going on in a sampling of pockets around the GTA - particularly some of our favourite Bungalow neighbourhoods - or you can get a Quick Market Update right here. No charge; no obligation. [It’s not a big deal to generate these, so please don’t hesitant to ask!]

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